The repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) which is a kind of magnetic stimulation therapies is a method of treatment that enables to treat, relieve and improve symptoms of neurological disorder such as post-stroke pain, depression and Alzheimer's disease by noninvasively applying magnetic stimulation to a specific region of the brain such as an intracerebral nerve.
In the transcranial magnetic stimulation therapy, a magnetism generation means such as an excitation coil is disposed in a specific position on a surface of a scalp of a patient, and magnetic stimulation is applied to a specific part of the brain of the patient by the magnetism generating means. As a specific method, PTL 1 discloses that stimulation is applied to intracerebral nerve directly under a coil unit disposed on the surface of the scalp of the patient by flowing current through the coil unit to locally produce a minute pulse magnetic field, thereby generating an eddy current in the cranium by using the principle of electromagnetic induction. Magnetic stimulation methods other than a transcranial magnetic stimulation method include, for example, a magnetic stimulation method that performs nerve stimulation to a pelvic floor area.
A magnetic therapy system is usually configured to perform a clinically approved magnetic stimulation therapy, and an excitation pattern therefore is fixed. For example, according to NPL 1, it is described that a treatment condition for post-stroke pain is set at a frequency of f=5 Hz, 10 seconds for a stimulation time, 50 seconds for an interval time, 10 trains, and 90% RMT, and according to NPL 2, a treatment condition for depression is set at frequency f=10 Hz, 4 seconds for a stimulation time, 26 seconds for an interval time, 75 trains, and 120% RMT. In this case the minimum stimulus intensity capable of inducing Motor Evoked Potential (MEP) amplitude with a probability of 50% or more is defined as Motor Threshold (MT), and Resting Motor Threshold (RMT) denotes the MT at rest. These differ in each patient according to magnetic stimulation receptiveness of a patient and are precisely determined by electromyography. These may also be simply determined by observing a condition of muscle contraction (twitch) of the patient at the time of a treatment. Moreover, the treatment condition includes a pulse width t. According to NPL 3, in Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) it is described that different pulse widths t are utilized depending on treated diseases such as tremor and ataxia, and in rTMS it is similarly assumed that pulse widths t as an optimum treatment condition may differ depending on diseases.
Above described treatment conditions that give a stimulus to cranial nerve are realized by both a coil and a coil driving power supply, and a dedicated coil and an dedicated coil driving power supply are basically required for giving a treatment condition optimum for each disease and each patient. However, preparing the dedicated coil and the coil driving power supply for different diseases results in preparing different magnetic stimulation systems for each of the disease, so that increase in the apparatus purchase cost in a medical institution and a price rise of treatment apparatuses due to high-variety low-volume manufacturing will be incurred.
Devices currently used for clinical study include an inspection apparatus capable of being used with connecting a plurality of coils to one coil driving power supply. In this inspection device, for the above described treatment conditions, after a medical doctor connects a coil corresponding to a disease to the coil driving power supply, the setting apparatus provided in the coil driving power supply is manually adjusted so as to realize a current waveform pattern to be applied to the coil. However, excessive irradiation of a pulse magnetic field has side reaction risks such as an epileptic seizure, and to date, it is thought to be desirable that the inspection device be dealt with by a health-care worker having knowledge to rightly perform operation while understanding magnetic field characteristics generated by the coil through a current provided from the coil driving power supply. In order to make the treatment popular in the future, a function to support setting operations of a health-care worker so that a device can be safely dealt with without advanced knowledge, and moreover a function enabling a patient oneself to operate the device will be required.